


Keep Running

by callmedok



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys (Album)
Genre: Gen, Gratuitous The Invisibles references, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 21:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7730173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmedok/pseuds/callmedok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korse used to be a zonerunner, like the best of them. Older than the Killjoys, their contact when Dr.D was running for a while and they needed gear and food and safe shelter when their bases got raided.<br/>Now he ain't nothin but a Ritalin Rat for BL/ind, caught in a zonerunner attack against Bat City and probably completely ghosted. No memories to call his own besides what BL/ind filled him with, what lies they fed the man's mind and how they'd stripped him of anything that might've resembled the man he once was.<br/>And fuck if the Fab Four don't mourn him.<br/>*<br/>Or, the author had a theory about the origins of Korse and why the Killjoy crew seem so familiar with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Sadness Upon Them

Korse used to be a zonerunner, like the best of them. Older than the Killjoys, their contact when Dr.D was running for a while and they needed gear and food and safe shelter when their bases got raided.  
Now he ain't nothin' but a Ritalin Rat for BL/ind, caught in a zonerunner attack against Bat City and probably completely ghosted. No memories to call his own besides what BL/ind filled him with, what lies they fed the man's mind and how they'd stripped him of anything that might've resembled the man he once was.

And fuck if the Fab Four don't mourn him.

*

"King Mob... he was a fuckhead, but our fuckhead, yeah? Complete crash queen, but he knew his shit." Kobra begins, cause Party's still holding Mob's mask and not saying a thing, Ghoul looks uncomfortable in his own skin, and Jet's looking like he wants to speak up but at the same time wants to keep silent.

"I... one time, I asked where he got Harmony House from for his zines."Party begins, voice cracking a little. "He just gave me this look, this crazy fuckin grin,and said 'Better Living threatened my dad once, using me. They never tried again.' And I was just... I was in fucking awe, y'know? And now..."

Everything goes back to the uncomfortable silence that had been before Kobra talked, and Ghoul kicks at the ground with a boot. "And now he's been fucked."Ghoul says, voicing the very thing the rest of them have been dancing around this entire time.

"Ghosted till we find a corpse.Least we might be able to reboot him." Jet says, before adding as he motions in Kobra's direction and at himself,"Just like you and Party did with us."

"A week, Jet. S' been a week.You guys, a few hours under. Him..." Ghoul says,in this defeated sorta voice that just fucking breaks all their hearts.

"It'd be a suicide mission."Party says, still staring at the mask with a deep crack in it's glass underneath all the fucking fur. A fucking miracle Mob hadn't died from sun sickness with all this shit weighing him down and probably making it difficult as fuck to breathe. 

"This ain't a breadbox hellhole, small and contained, like where you guys were hauled off to. This is their fucking playground, ready to shoot us full of bolts the second we try to gatecrash." Party continues, wishing he could shove the mask into the mailbox already for the Phoenix Witch to rescue their friend's soul from that white-washed hell. But until they say the last words, official last words,then they ain't going anywhere.

"...Fuck, let's get this over with. Shelve the plans for now. Let's give this fucker a suiting send-off." Ghoul says,cracking the tension in the air.

"Jet, you got the fireworks?"Kobra asks,turning to the guy in question.

"Yeah, what I could get from the traders. Small stuff,like we wanted."Jet says, cracking open his satchel to start passing them around. Mostly small spark spewing ones, some that let off colored smoke. A few ones that pop,bang,whizz. Party shoves the mask under his arm to take the ones offered to him,and Ghoul produces the matches to light them.

They set them up in a circle,but Party keeps one of the smoke spewing ones in his free hand.

He'll lead the words to where they should belong, so Mob's remnants will be able to find their way out of the hellish pit of that city that's probably consumed him alive by now.

Anything for a friend.

Party places the mask in the middle of the circle, and Ghoul starts lighting them up. Last is Party's smoker, which is bright obnoxious orange. Just the color that had belonged to Mob, like red was Kobra and Party and blue was Jet and green and purple were Ghoul. Party smiles a mockery of a grin, cause Mob would fuckin laugh about this if he'd heard about it. How they'd gone through the steps.

He would've, anyways.

"King Mob, you son of a bitch, follow my voice. Follow my fucking voice, follow the desert air and let the heat guide you home. Home is where the heart is, dust storms and disasters and all. Leave Bat, leave the white, come back into color. Fuck the cold, the slumber of sleep, get your ass back into the light of day and pull the pin, fucking explode into color and join the Witch, Mob. Join us again,and run one last time. Run like a light in the desert of death, and fly."Party says, saying the words that he'd hoped he wouldn't have to speak for a long time.The orange grows fainter the higher it goes,and in the twilight it starts to blend with part of the sunset.

The mailbox is far enough from anywhere that no one will hear their grave service, hear the words that their crew uses to give their fallen friends one last run across the zone. The mailbox is a sacred place, a neutral ground,and while there are a handful of other way stations for the dead this one is especially close to their hearts.

Every service is customized, but this one...

Mob helped Party write it, ages ago in a fit of morbid humor that had all of them laughing cause Mob was like a fucking cockroach, he'd always manage to escape and slip out and in general be a difficult motherfucker to nail down so why have a service ready for him?

The words are like ashes in Party's mouth, and he's grateful when Jet picks up the mask and slides it into the mailbox. It means that this chapter is closed, forever. Mob is officially in the hands of the Witch, to be delivered to whatever his sanctuary in death would be.

"I need a fucking drink." Kobra says as they start collecting up the spent fireworks, planning to bring em back to base to see if they can get anything more out of them. 

"Let's celebrate Mob, give him a proper bang to go out by." Party says, cause everyone wants a party after the funeral, yeah?

And Ghoul and Jet are already naming places they could go, the ones least raided recently, and it's climbing into the car and off they go.

On one hand their shoulders are lighter, a friend and contact given the burial he might never get otherwise.On the other, he's ghosted, dusted. Mob ain't gonna be showing his mug anymore, his shininess stamped out by the white suited fuckheads running the hellhole.

One less grenade to be anti-matter for the master plan.

So they drive, and throw a proper wake best as they can.

A farewell to an asshole who helped them numerous times, and they'll be unable to repay now.


	2. King In Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In one of the raids in a building in Battery City, Party comes face to face with a lingering ghost.  
> It's not good.

Party Poison's running as fast as he can, stretching out every step to the end point, taking rapid fire turns down twisting hallways to get loose of the Dracs on his trail. He dusts every security camera at the turns, hoping to obscure his path as long as he can.  
He has no idea where he's going to end up, but Jet has a schematic for the building and their comms haven't been cut off yet.

He's making a left, aiming for a staircase, when he realizes there's someone at the far end of the hallway standing between him and hopefully freedom.

And it's Mob.

Mob who everyone thought was ghosted on that raid, no body to leave to the sand but at least a mask to guide the Phoenix Witch his way if he'd actually breathed his last.  
Pale, pale like the sun had never touched his skin, and dark gray smudges under his eyes like he'd been fixing up an engine and wiped absent minded at his face and-

May the Witch help all of them, but it is King Mob and yet not the King Mob Party had befriended.

There's no laugh, no tilt of the head to spur Party forward to his goal, Mob's eyes are shards of volcanic glass cool and dark in his head as he just fucking stares.  
He almost blends into the walls, endless expanse of white only broken up by gray and black, hell even Mob is only broken up by gray and black now.

The smile that stretches on Mob's face is like a knife gash, sharp and dangerous and a twist in Party's stomach.

"Mob?" Party asks, almost desperately hoping that this isn't what he thinks it is. That it isn't a ghosting gone right, the end all alpha hell for any zonerunner, that the person he'd known simply no longer is.  
But Mob has a blaster aimed on him now, his moves quick and efficient and there are no flamboyant gestures. No talking to distract the enemy, no weaponized words to kneecap someone before they even realize what's occurred.

Mob moves like a machine, cleaned up and well-oiled.

"Call me Korse." Once-Mob replies with a bird-like head tilt, like he's inspecting Party under some sort of microscope, and Party almost hates himself as he lifts his own blaster.

This is a friend, a contact, an honorary member of his crew.

However, Korse is a bastardization of who Mob was. Korse is everything Mob fought against being, he was a hand grenade filled with paint but the creature in front of Party is a scalpel.

And Party is, he'll never admit this to his crew though, just a bit scared. Mob wasn't one of the oldest zonerunners cause he ran away a lot, he could fuckin' aim.

It's a standoff, Korse blocking the way out and Party able to hear Dracs quickly approaching. A steady thumping that makes him grit his teeth, ache to just keep running and shove his way past blaster threat be damned.

But Korse grins, too much teeth and yet so polished and mechanical Party's surprised he doesn't hear pistons pumping, and lowers his blaster.

"Run," Korse says, voice carrying over the moderate distance between them.

The man in white takes a step forward, and Party takes a step back without lowering his blaster.  
Party lets off a single shot, because he isn't going to be boxed in like this. He won't turn back to face a horde of Draculoids, he'd rather run full tilt at Korse than face the sheer numbers of what's behind him.  
It catches Korse in the upper arm of the one that has the blaster, singes through the fabric and shows red burned flesh underneath. Korse hisses out of probably surprise over anything else and clutches at said arm, blaster clattering to the tile.

"Good move, but I won't be so weak next time." Korse says as Poison barges past him, the words sounding like a threat as they leave his lips. Party doesn't respond, takes the right and prepares to shoulder a door open to hit the staircase.

"Keep running!" Korse yells behind him, for an inkling of a moment sounding like the King Mob Party once knew.

Sounding like he has actual emotions, rather than being a cold slate.

Party just keeps running, practically flying down the stairs two steps at a time, and may the Witch help any Dracs that cross his path now.

Kobra is yelling in his ear about how he needs to kick his ass into gear, their escape window closes in fifteen minutes and Ghoul is still holed up in one of the labs wrecking shit and keeping Dracs out.  
All four of them will get outta this,and they'll fight to ensure that.

Party says he'll be there in five, cause he's on the landing for the fourth floor already and the rest of the gang's on second.  
He's not losing any more crew today.

Not over his dead body.

(Thankfully his voice doesn't crack later when he tells the other three what's become of Mob. The time of mourning is long over, Party has no reason to feel sorrow for someone who the Phoenix Witch has taken under their care. Ghoul looks like he could puke by the end of it, Jet with a hand over his mouth like he wants to say something but can't find the words cause his head's gone empty, and Kobra...

Kobra rests a hand on Party's shoulder, the solid rock when Party feels like everything will come apart under his own two feet. The person who helps him keep it together for a bit longer, cause Kobra knows how much Mob's zines meant to Party.

Knows that for a third time in their shared existence that someone they trusted was ripped away from them by BL/Ind.

They don't participate in another Bat raid for a month, a month filled with hearing about a shiny new terror under BL/Ind's collar, a man in white and gray who moves like a Zoner but acts like a Ritalin Rat.

It's a long month,and an even longer road stretched ahead of the Fabulous Four.)

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started because near the tail-end of 2015 I was reading the Killjoy comic, I had the album, and I was binge-reading all of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles that I could find. I had an idea, 'hey what if other people who were musicians and artists and stuff were also Killjoys? Hell, what if Grant was a zonerunner in the beginning, and ghosting was a term for brainwashing and dusting meant perma-dead?'
> 
> Then it turned into this, with emotions all over the place, and having a faint idea about how zonerunners mourn their fellows.


End file.
